Part 32

"That is as Lady Jenkins pleases. There are lots of relations, Jenkinses. Sir Daniel partly brought up two orphan nephews--at least, he paid for their schooling and left each a little money to place them out in life. You have seen the younger of them, Sam, who is with us; the other, Dan, is articled to a solicitor in the town, old Belford. Two other cousins are in the drysalting business; and the ironmonger, Sir Daniel's youngest brother, left several sons and daughters. The old drysalter had no end of nephews and nieces, and might have provided for them all. Perhaps his widow will do so."

Not possessing the faintest idea of what "drysalting" might be, unless it had to do with curing hams, I was about to inquire, when the house-door was thrown open by a pompous-looking gentleman in black--the butler--who showed us into the dining-room, where Lady Jenkins was sitting. I liked her at first sight. She was short and stout, and had pink cheeks and a pink turned-up nose, and wore a "front" of flaxen curls, surmounted by a big smart cap with red roses and blue ribbons in it; but there was not an atom of pretence about her, and her blue eyes were kindly. She took the hands of Dr. Knox in hers, and she shook mine warmly, saying she had heard of Johnny Ludlow.

Turning from her, I caught the eyes of a younger lady fixed upon me. She looked about seven-and-twenty, and wore a fashionable black-and-white muslin gown. Her hair was dark, her eyes were a reddish brown, her cheeks had a fixed bloom upon them. The face was plain, and it struck me that I had seen it somewhere before. Dr. Knox greeted her as Madame St. Vincent.

When we first went in, Lady Jenkins seemed to wake up from a doze. In two minutes she had fallen into a doze again, or as good as one. Her eyelids drooped, she sat perfectly quiet, never speaking unless spoken to, and her face wore a sort of dazed, or stupid look. Madame St. Vincent talked enough for both of them; she appealed frequently to Lady Jenkins--"Was it not so, dear Lady Jenkins?"--or "Don't you remember that, dear Lady Jenkins?" and Lady Jenkins docilely answered "Yes, dear," or "Yes, Patty."

That Madame St. Vincent was a pleasant woman, as Mr. Tamlyn had said, and that she spoke English as we did, as he had also said, there could not be a doubt. Her tongue could not be taken for any but a native tongue; moreover, unless my ears deceived me, it was native Worcestershire. Ever and anon, too, a homely word would be dropped by her in the heat of conversation that belonged to Worcestershire proper, and to no other county.

"You will come to my soirée this evening, Mr. Ludlow," Lady Jenkins woke up to say to me as we were leaving.

"Johnny can come; I dare say he would like to," put in Dr. Knox; "although I and Janet cannot----"

"Which is very churlish of you," interposed Madame St. Vincent.

"Well, you know what impediments lie in our way," he said, smiling. "Sam can come up with Johnny, if you like, Lady Jenkins."

"To be sure; let Sam come," she answered, readily. "How is Sam? and how does he get on?"

"He is very well, and gets on well."

Dr. Knox walked down the road in silence, looking grave. "Every time I see her she seems to me more altered," he observed presently, and I found he was speaking of Lady Jenkins. "_Something_ is amiss with her, and I cannot tell what. I wish Tamlyn would let me take the case in hand!"

Two peculiarities obtained at Lefford. The one was that the universal dinner hour, no-matter how much you might go in for fashion, was in the middle of the day; the other was that every evening gathering, no matter how unpretentious, was invariably called a "soirée." They were the customs of the town.

The soirée was in full swing when I reached Jenkins House that night--at six o'clock. Madame St. Vincent and Charlotte Knox sat behind the tea-table in a cloud of steam, filling the cups as fast as the company emptied them; a footman, displaying large white calves, carried round a tray of bread-and-butter and cake. Lady Jenkins sat near the fire in an easy-chair, wearing a red velvet gown and lofty turban. She nodded to the people as they came in, and smiled at them with quite a silly expression. Mina and Charlotte Knox were in white muslin and pink roses. Mina looked very pretty indeed, and as mild as milk; Charlotte was downright and strong-minded. Every five minutes or so, Madame St. Vincent--the white streamers on her rich black silk dress floating behind her--would leave the tea-table to run up to Lady Jenkins and ask if she wanted anything. Sam had not come with me: he had to go out unexpectedly with Dr. Knox.

"Mr. Jenkins," announced the pompous butler, showing in a tall young fellow of twenty. He had just the same sort of honest, good-natured face that had taken my fancy in Sam, and I guessed that this was his brother, the solicitor. He came up to Lady Jenkins.

"How do you do, aunt?" he said, bending to kiss her. "Hearing of your soirée to-night, I thought I might come."

"Why, my dear, you know you may come; you are always welcome. Which is it?" she added, looking up at him stupidly, "Dan, or Sam?"

"It is Dan," he answered; and if ever I heard pain in a tone, I heard it in his.

"You are Johnny Ludlow, I know!" he said, holding out his hand to me in the warmest manner, as he turned from his aunt. "Sam told me about you this morning." And we were friends from that moment.

Dan brought himself to an anchor by Mina Knox. He was no beauty certainly, but he had a good face. Leaning over Mina's chair, he began whispering to her--and she whispered back again. Was there anything between them? It looked like it--at any rate, on his side--judging by his earnest expression and the loving looks that shot from his honest grey eyes.

"Are you really French?" I asked of Madame St. Vincent, while standing by her side to drink some tea.

"Really," she answered, smiling. "Why?"

"Because you speak English exactly like ourselves."

"I speak it better than I do French," she candidly said. "My mother was English, and her old maid-servant was English, and they educated me between them. It was my father who was French--and he died early."

"Was your mother a native of Worcestershire?"

"Oh dear, no: she came from Wales. What made you think of such a thing?"

"Your accent is just like our Worcestershire accent. I am Worcestershire myself: and I could have thought you were."

She shook her head. "Never was there in my life, Mr. Ludlow. Is that why you looked at me so much when you were here with Dr. Knox this morning?"

"No: I looked at you because your face struck me as being familiar," I frankly said: "I thought I must have seen you somewhere before. Have I, I wonder?"

"Very likely--if you have been much in the South of France," she answered: "at a place called Brétage."

"But I have never been at Brétage."

"Then I don't see how we can have met. I have lived there all my life. My father and mother died there: my poor husband died there. I only came away from it last year."

"It must be my fancy, I suppose. One does see likenesses----"

"Captain Collinson," shouted the butler again.

A military-looking man, got up in the pink of fashion, loomed in with a lordly air; you'd have said the room belonged to him. At first he seemed all hair: bushy curls, bushy whiskers, a moustache, and a fine flowing beard, all purple black. Quite a flutter stirred the room: Captain Collinson was evidently somebody.

After making his bow to Lady Jenkins, he distributed his favours generally, shaking hands with this person, talking with that. At last he turned our way.

"Ah, how do you do, madame?" he said to Madame St. Vincent, his tone ceremonious. "I fear I am late."

It was not a minute that he stood before her, only while he said this: but, strange to say, something in his face or voice struck upon my memory. The face, as much as could be seen of it for hair, seemed familiar to me--just as madame's had seemed.

"Who is he?" I whispered to her, following him with my eyes.

"Captain Collinson."

"Yes, I heard the name. But--do you know anything of him?--who he is?"

She shook her head. "Not much; nothing of my own knowledge. He is in an Indian regiment, and is home on sick leave."

"I wonder which regiment it is? One of our fellows at Dr. Frost's got appointed to one in Madras, I remember."

"The 30th Bengal Cavalry, is Captain Collinson's. By his conversation, he appears to have spent nearly the whole of his life in India. It is said he is of good family, and has a snug private fortune. I don't know any more about him than that," concluded Madame St. Vincent, as she once more rose to go to Lady Jenkins.

"He may have a snug private fortune, and he may have family, but I do not like him," put in Charlotte Knox, in her decisive manner.

"Neither do I, Lotty," added Dan--who was then at the tea-table: and his tone was just as emphatic as Charlotte's.

He had come up for a cup of tea for Mina. Before he could carry it to her, Captain Collinson had taken up the place he had occupied at Mina's elbow, and was whispering to her in a most impressive manner. Mina seemed all in a flutter--and there was certainly no further room for Dan.

"Don't you want it now, Mina?" asked Dan, holding the cup towards her, and holding it in vain, for she was too much occupied to see it.

"Oh, thank you--no--I don't think I do want it now. Sorry you should have had the trouble."

Her words were just as fluttered as her manner. Dan brought the tea back and put it on the tray.

"Of course, she can't spare time to drink tea while _he_ is there," cried Charlotte, resentfully, who had watched what passed. "That man has bewitched her, Dan."

"Not quite yet, I think," said Dan, quietly. "He is trying to do it. There is no love lost between you and him, I see, Lotty."

"Not a ghost of it," nodded Lotty. "The town may be going wild in its admiration of him, but I am not; and the sooner he betakes himself back to India to his regiment, the better."

"I hope he will not take Mina with him," said Dan, gravely.

"I hope not, either. But she is silly enough for anything."

"Who is that, that's silly enough for anything?" cried Madame St. Vincent, whisking back to her place.

"Mina," promptly replied Charlotte. "She asked for a cup of tea, and then said she did not want it."

Some of the people sat down to cards; some to music; some talked. It was the usual routine at these soirées, Mrs. Knox condescended to inform me--and, what more, she added, could be wished for? Conversation, music, and cards--they were the three best diversions of life, she said, not that she herself much cared for music.

Poor Lady Jenkins did not join actively in any one of the three: she for the most part dozed in her chair. When any one spoke to her, she would wake up and say Yes or No; but that was all. Captain Collinson stood in a corner, talking to Mina behind a sheet of music. He appeared to be going over the bars with her, and to be as long doing it as if a whole opera were scored there.

At nine o'clock the supper-room was thrown open, and Captain Collinson handed in Lady Jenkins. Heavy suppers were not the mode at Lefford; neither, as a rule, did the guests sit down, except a few of the elder ones; but the table was covered with dainties. Sandwiches, meats in jelly, rissoles, lobster salad, and similar things that could be eaten with a fork, were supplied in abundance, with sweets and jellies.

"I hope you'll be able to make a supper, my dear," said Lady Jenkins to me in her comfortable way--for supper seemed to wake her up. "You see, if one person began to give a grand sitting-down supper, others would think themselves obliged to do it, and every one can't afford that. So we all confine ourselves to this."

"And I like this best," I said.

"Do you, my dear? I'm glad of that. Dan, is that you? Mind you make a good supper too."

We both made a famous one. At least, I can answer for myself. And, at half-past ten, Dan and I departed together.

"How very good-natured Lady Jenkins seems to be!" I remarked.

"She is good-nature itself, and always was," Dan warmly answered. "She has never been a bit different from what you see her to-night--kind to us all. You should have known her though in her best days, before she grew ill. I never saw any one so altered."

"What is it that's the matter with her?"

"I don't know," answered Dan. "I wish I did know. Sam tells me Tamlyn does not know. I'm afraid he thinks it is the break-up of old age. I should be glad, though, if she did not patronize that fellow Collinson so much."

"Every one seems to patronize him."

"Or to let him patronize them," corrected Dan. "I can't like the fellow. He takes too much upon himself."

"He seems popular. Quite the fashion."

"Yes, he is that. Since he came here, three or four months ago, the women have been running after him. Do _you_ like him, Johnny Ludlow?" abruptly added Dan.

"I hardly know whether I do or not: I've not seen much of him," was my answer. "As a rule, I don't care for those people who take much upon themselves. The truth is, Dan," I laughed jokingly, "you think Collinson shows too much attention to Mina Knox."

Dan walked on for a few moments in silence. "I am not much afraid of that," he presently said. "It is the fellow himself I don't like."

"And you do like Mina?"

"Well--yes; I do. If Mina and I were older and my means justified it, I would make her my wife to-morrow--I don't mind telling you so much. And if the man is after her, it is for the sake of her money, mind, not for herself. I'm sure of it. I can see."

"I thought Collinson had plenty of money of his own."

"So he has, I believe. But money never comes amiss to an extravagant and idle man; and I think that Mina's money makes her attraction in Collinson's eyes. I wish with all my heart she had never had it left her!" continued Dan, energetically. "What did Mina want with seven thousand pounds?"

"I dare say you would not object to it, with herself."

"I'd as soon not have it. I hope I shall make my way in my profession, and make it well, and I would as soon take Mina without money as with it. I'm sure her mother might have it and welcome, for me! She is always hankering after it."

"How do you know she is?"

"We do her business at old Belford's, and she gets talking about the money to him, making no scruple of openly wishing it was hers. She bothers Dr. Knox, who is Mina's trustee, to lend her some of it. As if Knox would!--she might just as well go and bother the moon. No! But for that confounded seven thousand pounds Collinson would let Mina alone."

I shook my head. He could not know it. Mina was very pretty. Dan saw my incredulity.

"I will tell you why I judge so," he resumed, dropping his voice to a lower key. "Unless I am very much mistaken, Collinson likes some one else--and that's Madame St. Vincent. Sam thinks so too."

It was more than I thought. They were cool to one another.

"But we have seen them when no one else was by," contended Dan: "when he and she were talking together alone. And I can tell you that there was an expression on his face, an anxiousness, an eagerness--I hardly know how to word it--that it never wore for Mina. Collinson's love is given to madame. Rely upon that."

"Then why should he not declare it?"

"Ah, I don't know. There may be various reasons. Her poverty perhaps--for she has nothing but the salary Lady Jenkins pays her. Or, he may not care to marry one who is only a companion: they say he is of good family himself. Another reason, and possibly the most weighty one, may be, that madame does not like him."

"I don't think she does like him."

"I am sure she does not. She gives him angry looks, and she turns away from him with ill-disguised coldness. And so, that's about how the state of affairs lies up there," concluded Dan, shaking hands with me as we reached the door of his lodgings. "Captain Collinson's love is given to Madame St. Vincent, on the one hand, and to Mina's money on the other; and I think he is in a pretty puzzle which of the two to choose. Good-night, Johnny Ludlow. Be sure to remember this is only between ourselves."

II.

A week or so passed on. Janet was up to her eyes in preparations, expecting a visitor. And the visitor was no other than Miss Cattledon--if you have not forgotten her. Being fearfully particular in all ways, and given to fault-finding, as poor Janet only too well remembered, of course it was necessary to have things in apple-pie order.

"I should never hear the last of it as long as Aunt Jemima stayed, if so much as a speck of dust was in any of the rooms, or a chair out of place," said Janet to me laughingly, as she and the maids dusted and scrubbed away.

"What's she coming for, Janet?"

"She invited herself," replied Janet: "and indeed we shall be glad to see her. Miss Deveen is going to visit some friends in Devonshire, and Aunt Jemima takes the opportunity of coming here the while. I am sorry Arnold is so busy just now. He will not have much time to give to her--and she likes attention."

The cause of Dr. Knox's increased occupation, was Mr. Tamlyn's illness. For the past few days he had had feverish symptoms, and did not go out. Few medical men would have found the indisposition sufficiently grave to remain at home; but Mr. Tamlyn was an exception. He gave in at the least thing now: and it was nothing at all unusual for Arnold Knox to find all the patients thrown on his own hands.

Amongst the patients so thrown this time was Lady Jenkins. She had caught cold at that soirée I have just told of. Going to the door in her old-fashioned, hospitable way, to speed the departure of the last guests, she had stayed there in the draught, talking, and began at once to sneeze and cough.

"There!" cried Madame St. Vincent, when my lady got back again, "you have gone and caught a chill."

"I think I have," admitted Lady Jenkins. "I'll send for Tamlyn in the morning."

"Oh, my dear Lady Jenkins, we shall not want Tamlyn," dissented madame. "I'll take care of you myself, and have you well in no time."

But Lady Jenkins, though very much swayed by her kind companion, who was ever anxious for her, chose to have up Mr. Tamlyn, and sent him a private message herself.

He went up at once--evidently taking madame by surprise--and saw his patient. The cold, being promptly treated, turned out to be a mere nothing, though Madame St. Vincent insisted on keeping the sufferer some days in bed. By the time Mr. Tamlyn was ill, she was well again, and there was not much necessity for Dr. Knox to take her: at least, on the score of her cold. But he did it.

One afternoon, when he was going up there late, he asked me if I would like the drive. And, while he paid his visit to Lady Jenkins, I went in to Rose Villa. It was a fine, warm afternoon, almost like summer, and Mrs. Knox and the girls were sitting in the garden. Dicky was there also. Dicky was generally at school from eight o'clock till six, but this was a half-holiday. Dicky, eleven years old now, but very little for his age, was more troublesome than ever. Just now he was at open war with his two younger sisters and Miss Mack, the governess, who had gone indoors to escape him.

Leaning against the trunk of a tree, as he talked to Mrs. Knox, Mina, and Charlotte, stood Captain Collinson, the rays of the sun, now drawing westward, shining full upon him, bringing out the purple gloss of his hair, whiskers, beard, and moustache deeper than usual. Captain Collinson incautiously made much of Dicky, had told him attractive stories of the glories of war, and promised him a commission when he should be old enough. The result was, that Dicky had been living in the seventh heaven, had bought himself a tin sword, and wore it strapped to his waist, dangling beneath his jacket. Dicky, wild to be a soldier, worshipped Captain Collinson as the prince of heroes, and followed him about like a shadow. An inkling of this ambition of Dicky's, and of Captain Collinson's promise, had only reached Mrs. Knox's ears this very afternoon. It was a ridiculous promise of course, worth nothing, but Mrs. Knox took it up seriously.

"A commission for Dicky!--get Dicky a commission!" she exclaimed in a flutter that set her bracelets jangling, just as I arrived on the scene. "Why, what can you mean, Captain Collinson? Do you think I would have Dicky made into a soldier--to be shot at? Never. He is my only son. How can you put such ideas into his head?"

"Don't mind her," cried Dicky, shaking the captain's coat-tails. "I say, captain, don't you mind her."

Captain Collinson turned to young Dicky, and gave him a reassuring wink. Upon which, Dicky went strutting over the grass-plat, brandishing his sword. I shook hands with Mrs. Knox and the girls, and, turning to salute the captain, found him gone.

"You have frightened him away, Johnny Ludlow," cried Charlotte: but she spoke in jest.

"He was already going," said Mina. "He told me he had an engagement."

"And a good thing too," spoke Mrs. Knox, crossly. "Fancy his giving dangerous notions to Dicky!"

Dicky had just discovered our loss. He came shrieking back to know where the captain was. Gone away for good, his mother told him. Upon which young Dicky plunged into a fit of passion and kicking.

"Do you know how Lady Jenkins is to-day?" I asked of Charlotte, when Dicky's noise had been appeased by a promise of cold apple-pudding for tea.

"Not so well."

"Not so well! I had thought of her as being much better."

"I don't think her so," continued Charlotte. "Madame St. Vincent told Mina this morning that she was all right; but when I went in just now she was in bed and could hardly answer me."

"Is her cold worse?"

"No; I think that is gone, or nearly so. She seemed dazed--stupid, more so than usual."

"I certainly never saw any one alter so greatly as Lady Jenkins has altered in the last few months," spoke Mrs. Knox. "She is not like the same woman."

"I'm sure I wish we had never gone that French journey!" said Mina. "She has never been well since. Oh, here's Arnold!"

Dr. Knox had come straight into the garden from Jenkins House. Dicky rushed up to besiege his arms and legs; but, as Dicky was in a state of flour--which he had just put upon himself in the kitchen, or had had put upon him by the maids--the doctor ordered him to keep at arm's-length; and the doctor was the only person who could make himself obeyed by Dicky.

"You have been to see Lady Jenkins, Arnold," said his step-mother. "How is she?"

"Nothing much to boast of," lightly answered Dr. Knox. "Johnny, are you ready?"

"I am going to be a soldier, Arnold," put in Dicky, dancing a kind of war-dance round him. "Captain Collinson is going to make me a captain like himself."

"All right," said Arnold. "You must grow a little bigger first."

"And, Arnold, the captain says---- Oh, my!" broke off Dicky, "what's this? What have I found?"

The boy stooped to pick up something glittering that had caught his eye. It proved to be a curiously-shaped gold watch-key, with a small compass in it. Mina and Lotty both called out that it was Captain Collinson's, and must have dropped from his chain during a recent romp with Dicky.

"I'll take it in to him at Lady Jenkins's," said Dicky.

"You will do nothing of the sort, sir," corrected his mother, taking the key from him: she had been thoroughly put out by the suggestion of the "commission."

"Should you chance to see the captain when you go out," she added to me, "tell him his watch-key is here."

The phaeton waited outside. It was the oldest thing I ever saw in regard to fashion, and might have been in the firm hundreds of years. Its hood could be screwed up and down at will; just as the perch behind, where Thomas, the groom, generally sat, could be closed or opened. I asked Dr. Knox whether it had been built later than the year One.